Newsletter

Duval school system to open Newcomer School for those new to United States

Englewood to host program for international students

Tolou Taskakkor, 16, writes on the board in her class Wednesday morning. Sivath Lim teaches the international students who are new to the United States.

Photos by Bob.Self@jacksonville.com Mays Alkanan-Tameemi, 17, who is from Iraq, gets help from teacher Sivath Lim during the Wednesday morning class at Englewood High School for international students who are new to the United States.

Bob.Self@jacksonville.com Sivath Lim teaches international students who are new to the United States Wednesday morning at Englewood High School. A Newcomer School will open in August at Englewood.

Brenda Trimble talks with Sivath Lim who teaches international students at Englewood High School, and who will be part of the Newcomer School when it opens in August. Trimble has been the driving force behind the program.

A Duval County high school will be home to a special program designed to serve the school district’s growing number of international students, including many whose families escaped war or oppression in their homelands.

Opening in August with 120 high school-age students, the Newcomer School will be a “school within a school” at Englewood High School. It is designed for students who speak little or no English and who have had limited formal schooling.

Those students include many refugees whose families were resettled in Jacksonville by the federal government, said Brenda Trimble, supervisor of the district’s English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) program.

The refugees fled wars, civil conflicts or religious, ethnic or other government persecution in their home countries. Other students immigrated with their families to Jacksonville in the hopes of making a better life for themselves.

“Burmese is the second most common language spoken in the school system right now,” Trimble said.

Tha-Chin Sung, 16, is among the Burmese refugees. She said Englewood is very different from what she was used to.

“Sometimes, I was scared because the teacher would hit you,” she said, through a translator.

They had no library or computers, just a teacher and a chalk board for the lessons, she said.

Among the first of its kind in Florida, the district’s Newcomer School will join about 162 similar schools nationwide, according to Center for Applied Linguistics data.

Because it is a transitional program, the school will last no more than four semesters. District officials are considering opening a similar but smaller school at Southside Middle School. It initially would serve 80 students, Trimble said.

“We have over 4,000 students speaking 72 languages from 123 countries in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade,” she said. “About 33 percent of them are refugees, with many of them coming directly to us from refugee camps all over the world.”

Each war, civil conflict or disaster in the world brings an influx of refugee students, said Trimble, who has shepherded the Newcomer School project since the idea's inception three years ago.

The Newcomer School will focus on developing the students’ English proficiency.

It also will emphasize core academics, including reading and math. Like their English-speaking counterparts, the newcomers must meet Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test standards, pass end-of-course tests and earn graduation credits to get their diplomas. Tutoring will be available before and after school and possibly on Saturdays.

The school is modeled after exemplary programs nationwide and tailored to fit the needs of the Duval County international students.

Wrap-around services will be available to the students through the program’s alliance with The Center for Language and Culture at Kings Trail Elementary School, Lutheran Social Services Refugee Resettlement, World Relief and Catholic Charities, Trimble said.

Sivath Lim survived the genocide in Cambodia and endured life in a refugee camp before immigrating to America where he became a teacher. Lim teaches English/Language Arts to Englewood’s international students, many of whom will be eligible for the newcomer program.

“I have been blessed to have these kids. … It means a lot to me to be their teacher,” Lim said. “I can relate to them a lot better than some because of my experiences.”

While he was in a refugee camp, Lim would listen through a hole in the fence to lessons taught at a school nearby. He then would teach the other refugees what he learned.

“They are eager to learn,” Lim said of his students who have the same thirst for knowledge as those he previously taught.

Several of Lim’s students, speaking through translators, said going to Englewood was an adjustment, but a good one.

Mays Alkanan-Tameemi, 17, from Iraq, said the girls and boys were segregated at her old school. Students had to buy their own books and pay for transportation to school.

At Larazo Acosta-Perez’s school in Cuba, he and other students had little. “Sometimes, I would have to go home and get a chair,” Acosta-Perez, 17, said.

Overall, about 15,000 culturally and linguistically diverse students attend Duval County’s public schools. The number of district students learning to speak English has increased from 3 percent to 17 percent annually over the past 10 years, Trimble said.

Englewood and Robert E. Lee High School serve as the school district’s ESOL centers for high school students.

Englewood has about 320 ESOL students from Myanmar, Iraq, Cuba, Syria, some African nations and Mexico.

The students’ English proficiency and academic skills vary. Some have had formal schooling but aren’t proficient in English. Others have little or no previous formal education. The school has paraprofessionals fluent in Chin and Karen (the main languages spoken in Myanmar), Arabic, Farsi, Nepali, Spanish and French/Creole, said Marisa Gonzalez, the ESOL site coach.

The Newcomer School will operate with state and federal funding provided to the district. Teachers, paraprofessionals and the ESOL site coach already part of the Englewood faculty, plus two new math teachers, will staff the school. When they finish the newcomer program, the students will transition into Englewood’s regular ESOL program and have mainstream content classes, Trimble said.

The school’s opening signals a new beginning but comes at the close of Trimble’s 35-year career serving Duval students and their families. She will retire on Aug. 31.

“It is bittersweet. I will be here for two weeks to watch it take off and then I retire. … It’s going to be hard,” said Trimble, who’s devoted most of her career to ESOL students.

Superintendent Ed Pratt-Dannals said Trimble is not only a devoted educator, but also a great advocate for students learning English.

“She has championed this program. This is a great legacy for Brenda. It’s a legacy of reaching out and making us more welcoming," Pratt-Dannals said. "These students are going to be part of our community and we want them to be as successful as possible.”

Teresa Stepzinski: (904) 359-4075

Duval school system to open Newcomer School for those new to United States- By